Kevin Corrigan

This rising young actor has also carved a secondary career as a screenwriter. By his mid-20s, Kevin Corrigan had appeared in over 20 films, in roles ranging from bit parts to leads. He also snagged th...
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In yet ANOTHER summer romp from the Judd Apatow factory line Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is a beefy rotund guy who delivers subpoenas for a living. He also dates a young jail-bait cutie Angie (Amber Heard) when he’s not visiting his sweet stoner of a pot dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) to score the latest and greatest weed. In this case that’s the title star Pineapple Express a marijuana combination so lethal and unique Dale is almost (we said ALMOST) reluctant to destroy it by inhaling. But when he sets out to deliver a subpoena to drug kingpin Ted Jones (Gary Cole) he is spotted by the man as he commits a bloody murder. Freaking out Dale ditches the scene so fast he dumps some of the precious weed leaving it behind like a trail of breadcrumbs dropped by Hansel leading a trail to Saul. Reefer madness ensues as a full-blown freak out is set in motion and Dale and Saul hit the pedal to the metal in order to evade Ted and his loony goons (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson). This leads to so many crazy-weird encounters and near-death experiences it makes a Road Runner cartoon look like the work of Ingmar Bergman by comparison. Smashed heads sliced and diced ears banged up bodies galore--you want it Pineapple Express has got it. As the film’s ad line implores ‘put that in your pipe and smoke it!’ Rogen and Franco are the yin and yang of comedy here with wildly divergent styles that complement each other perfectly. Rogen plays Dale with such over-the-top hysteria and a high pitched sense of desperation he’s fun to watch--until you just want him to calm down and take a breath. Franco steals the film lock stock and barrel with his stoned-out weed maestro who clearly has ingested so much of the stuff himself that he qualifies for a place in the slacker hall of fame. With his parade of non-sequiturs and nonsensical ramblings Franco turns gentle Saul into one of the year’s most endearing and hilarious creations. Although the movie belongs to these two special mention should also go to Danny McBride who takes it on the chin (and everywhere else) as Red Saul’s unfaithful drug buddy and supplier. Cole is all evil menace while Rosie Perez shows up as his cop-tease accomplice. David Gordon Green a director previously known only for small downer indie films like All The Real Girls and Snow Angels seems to be getting off on all the toys producer Apatow has given him to play with. Adeptly handling the car crashes extreme violence and general anarchy on screen Green keeps the action moving and the laughs coming. The film is handsomely shot and production values are strong even though what’s on screen basically comes down to a how-can-you-top-this destruction derby. Working off a script from Superbad writers Rogen and his partner Evan Goldberg Green manages to evoke the spirit of a mismatched buddy movie along the lines of a Midnight Run but ratchets up speed tempo and noise levels to the needs of the average attention span for this type of flick. Take that Harold and Kumar! Although not as supergood as Superbad it’s all a lot of fun if you like your frivolity generously mixed with carnage. Huey Lewis also contributes a catchy title song that perfectly captures the whacked-out stoner spirit of the whole enterprise.

Walking into David Gordon Green’s trailer on the set of Pineapple Express it was hard not to notice a g-string lying near the door, just where we could spot it. Breaking the ice, Green was quick to explain the panties were worn by Nicky Katt on his last film Snow Angels. Apparently some “friends” thought they would stage undies in his trailer for fun, “I would never touch them,” Green says with a laugh. “I would stay a mile away from those drawers!”
It’s hard to believe the light-hearted director with a Texas drawl once made the intense dramas All the Real Girls and Snow Angels, and then seamlessly slipped into comedy. Now, he's bringing his own indie flair to the flick along with the unstoppable Judd Apatow and his golden boy, Seth Rogen.
Hollywood.com: How in the world did you get involved with this?
David Gordon Green: I just met these guys and they were working on Knocked Up at the time and I started hanging out on that set a little bit. I don’t know, they seemed like a good group of folks and they work in a very similar manner in studio comedies that I do and low budget dramas and in terms of style and the way we got to work with actors and stuff like that. We just thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what happened if we took some of my team and some of their team and tried to make a movie together.
HW: What’s it like doing comedy after all that drama?
DGG: The easy answer is it is a lot of fun. I needed, just for my head, after investing some serious level of passion and emotion in four movies, four dramatic movies I just felt that it wouldn’t come from a healthy place to do another dramatic movie until I kind of you know exercised other muscles…there is nothing worse than a terrible drama that comes from an artificial place…a bad comedy you can just have a drink or whatever and watch a little bit of it and have a snack and zone out on it, but a bad drama is just bad.
HW: The internet is buzzing about you making this switch. Do you feel pressured to succeed?
DGG: I think all the films I’ve made have had a degree of humor in them. I just felt somewhat monitored by the fact that to a degree there is a line you don’t want to cross in a dramatic movie and still be faithful and considerate of the characters and respectful of the material. Again, bringing so much of the same manner and sensibility, you know we are doing a little bit different lighting in this movie because you light differently for comedies. It is a totally different tone and it is ridiculous and over animated sometimes. I always divide people; people love one movie and hate the next. Hate all of them, love all of them so for me personally it is valuable to do something totally different.
HW: Does your directing style differ between comedy and drama?
DGG: Here you are searching for a laugh, you are searching for what makes it a little bit different. I think it is a similar bag of tricks and tools, just trying to do things that are outrageous and throw people curve balls because what I try to avoid is people who are so rehearsed and prepared and performances that are so designed and scenes that are so story boarded and kind of prefabricated that it just feels manufactured. So I just try to make it feel loose and imperfect, because imperfect to me is a lot more interesting.
HW: So you are ok with them just going and riffing on each other?
DGG: Yesterday we had one set up and I said let’s get Craig [Robinson] and Kevin [Corrigan] who were two kind of side characters and got this lighting set up, there were going to be some wardrobe changes for the other characters before they would be ready and just bring them in and improv a scene and see what happens if Kevin is eating coos coos here and Craig wants to get him out of there. What happens there when you film them and shout stuff off camera to them, see if they throw a line. If I’ve got an idea I’ll give it to them and say “say this” and then they will take that as a cue and go off on some tangent.
HW: How much stoner exclusive humor is there here?
DGG: I don’t think any of it is exclusive because I’m not a big pothead and I can’t stop laughing at these guys, so trying to make something that is not so genre specific that would only appeal to Cheech and Chong fans. I did my homework and watched a lot of the stoner movies of the last decade and I don’t think any of them are particularly funny. I even tried getting high for a couple of them and it still didn’t [help]… so it has got to work on different levels [laughs].
Check out the rest of our Pineapple Express set visit coverage!

New York's famed Chelsea Hotel is crawling with an assortment of creative types and wannabes whose lives are in disarray. These include tortured writer Bud (Kris Kristofferson) who has beaten the bottle but not the blues brought on by love continually going bad. Former paramours Mary (Natasha Richardson) wife Greta (Tuesday Weld) and waitress Grace (Uma Thurman) could cure his terminal loneliness but won't. Other Chelsea residents not faring much better are prolific poetess Audrey (Rosario Dawson) struggling painter Frank (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Crutches (Kevin Corrigan) a druggie hanger-on appropriately on crutches. Also helping support the Chelsea Hotel's rep as a magnet for misfits are out-of-town musicians Terry (Robert Sean Leonard) and Ross (Steve Zahn) who like their company very young. There's also Lynny (Frank Whaley) who does wobbly stand-up at the local club.
It's hard to fault talented actors who have so little to work with. But such seasoned talents as Richardson Thurman D'Onofrio and Zahn deserve better. At least Kristofferson as the tortured writer rings some emotional if familiar truths as does Weld his unlucky wife. These are two vets worth a detour to the Chelsea.
Oscar-nominated actor-turned-director Ethan Hawke has surrounded himself with many of his gifted thesp friends for his directorial debut. But all this directing and acting talent is no match for playwright/screenwriter Nicole Burdette's pretentious messy riff on the iconoclastic Chelsea characters and their questionable art. Hawke counters the mostly verbal tedium with seemingly random cross-cutting among the quirky Chelsea wannabes. Technically "Chelsea Walls" advertises some of digital video's shortcomings like graininess and a resistance to reds. But Hawke also exploits the medium for its strengths--spontaneity funkiness and intimacy. Hawke another wide-eyed filmmaker entertaining himself with wonderful digital toys forgets that he also has to entertain an audience.

In the early '70s scheming husband-and-wife lowlifes Mac and Pat McBeth work menial jobs at Duncan's Restaurant a popular greasy spoon in tiny Scotland Penn. Their boss Norm Duncan shares with them his idea to upgrade his eatery into a new-fangled operation that will allow patrons to drive up in their cars and order food. In a flash of rare inspiration the chronically stupid Mac suggests the even more efficient method of eliminating personnel by allowing customers to place orders themselves via intercom. Norm loves the idea but only rewards Mac with a nominal promotion to assistant manager. Furious Mac and Pat plot Norm's death and the takeover of Duncan's. The diabolical duo murder Norm by adding his head to the fries in a vat of boiling oil. With Norm's irresponsible sons immersed in other pastimes Mac and Pat successfully take control of the restaurant and turn it into a smashing fast food success. But complications ensue when Lt. Ernie McDuff investigates and restaurant employee Banco also Mac's good buddy becomes suspicious and turns against his friend. Although Mac and Pat thanks to their fast food success have traded their trailer park-like existence for a more upscale neighborhood justice lies just around the corner and threatens to tear it all away.
James LeGros and Maura Tierney (writer/director Billy Morrissette's real-life wife) are highly amusing as the wicked McBeths with LeGros handling hunky stupidity in an appealingly manly manner and Tierney oozing equal amounts of evil and lust. Christopher Walken as the gumshoe who hopes to crack the case is both '70s-style cool and utterly tacky. Kevin Corrigan registers as a dim-witted cipher who unexpectedly evolves into a dangerous nuisance and James Rebhorn is appropriately clueless as the hapless restaurateur.
Actor Billy Morrissette who makes his feature directorial debut here and also delivered the screenplay displays an assured knack for humor and a clear ability to entertain. His script is packed with shameless Shakespearean puns but the dialogue convinces in spite of the silliness. Morrissette also manages to reign in his over-the-top characters and situations so that they embody their own truths. Throughout Morrisette gives us delicious eye-candy with his attention to style as he his cinematographer and production designer deliver a hilarious send-up of the tacky '70s and the fast-food revolution. There are the clothes (wide collars were never wider) the kitschy decor (Naugahyde madness) the pop culture addictions (Yahtzee) and of course the rock 'n' roll. Until the last quarter of the film when momentum begins to sag Morrissette maintains a controlled canny grip on the droll goings-on.

Stream Hodsell (Bonnie Root) is a bright down-to-earth girl transplanted to New York City from Vermont. While she’s waiting to hear back from Harvard Stream’s first sexual encounter with her high-society boyfriend (James Roday) leaves her -- well underwhelmed. And as coming of age stories go tales told by upper-class girlfriend Jenny (Gaby
Hoffman) -- who allegedly climaxes all the time -- spurs Stream to pursue the elusive "orgasm" for herself. Along the way she trades in her boyfriend for a quiet brooding type (Ryan Reynolds). The only thing unpredictable in this plot was finally figuring out what the title meant.
For a small teen film "Coming Soon" features many old-school talents whose performances lend the movie much-needed credibility: Mia Farrow as Stream’s flighty ex-hippie mother (who sports double the red hair as Carrot Top) Ryan O’Neal as her vain father Spalding Gray as a high school adviser and Peter Bogdanovich as Farrow’s new boyfriend. Yasmine Bleeth is hilarious in a brief role as O’Neal’s new young love. Root and Reynolds are quietly affecting in their fumbling love story but Hoffman’s spoiled rich girl completely rubs the wrong way.
Director Colette Burson delivers a few laughs in her directorial debut but the film can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be a sex farce or a romantic comedy. Some jokes work (Stream figures out she hasn’t climaxed yet when she accidentally goes too near Jenny’s jacuzzi jet stream) but Burson wears them out by running scenes too long.

Had play produced at the Young Playwrights Festival of Playwrights Horizons in NYC

Had featured role on the Fox midseason replacement series "Grounded for Life"

Formed band Scooby Douche

Had featured role in Jake Paltrow's short "An Eviction Notice"

Scripted the Matthew Harrison-directed short "I'll Make You Eat Roses"

Co-starred in "Scotland, PA.", a comic take on "Macbeth" set in the world of fast-food restaurants in the early 1970s; screened at Sundance; released theatrically in 2002

Played supporting role of film crew member in Tom DiCillo's short, "Scene Six, Take One"

Made acting debut playing a dead Jesus Christ in a church production (date approximate)

Portrayed Jerry Rubin in "Steal This Movie!"

Won notice for his turn as an unattractive video store clerk in Nicole Holofcener's "Walking and Talking"

Played gang member in feature "Lost Angels"

Had regular role on the CBS sitcom "Pearl"

Reprised role in DeCillo's "Living in Oblivion", a feature based on the short "Scene Six, Take One"

With Harrison, co-wrote "Kicked in the Head"; also acted

Initial collaboration with Matthew Harrison, "Rhythm Thief"

Summary

This rising young actor has also carved a secondary career as a screenwriter. By his mid-20s, Kevin Corrigan had appeared in over 20 films, in roles ranging from bit parts to leads. He also snagged the supporting role of Frankie Spivak, college classmate to Rhea Perlman's "Pearl" (CBS, 1996-97).

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Notes

Corrigan hounded the casting director of "Lost Angels" in 1989 so continuously that they became friends and Corrigan is now godfather to her child.